Lawmaker: 'Lock her up' chants reveal frustration with justice system

"Quite frankly, they are frustrated, and understandably so," Marsha Blackburn said. "They believe that everyone should be treated fairly and treated the same." (AP Photo)

Republican delegates are chanting "lock her up" and other things about Hillary Clinton at the GOP convention this week because they're frustrated with the broken U.S. justice system, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said on Thursday.

"There are a couple of things there," Blackburn told the Washington Examiner. "I think you have to realize some of it has come from delegates to the convention. They have seen their employers and their places of work many times shut down by federal regulatory agencies, and they are tired of this. They realize there is a two-tiered system when it comes to access to justice and the court systems.

"Quite frankly, they are frustrated, and understandably so," Blackburn said. "They believe that everyone should be treated fairly and treated the same.

"Many people know that had they done what Ms. Clinton did, with having that type of information on a server, if they had lied to the country and ... to the families of those who have lost their lives, saying it was over a video when she was telling foreign leaders and her family that it was indeed a terrorist attack, they know what would have happened to them."

Blackburn was referencing Clinton's public statement in 2012 that the terrorist attack in Benghazi was the result of a YouTube video, and her use of a private server to process classified information as secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey absolved Clinton of wrongdoing over the server in June, suggesting that she had simply been ignorant of the law.

Anyone else, Blackburn said, "would not have been given the benefit of the doubt. So I think what you see there is the voicing of frustration."